It is legitimately any set that people want to draft other than Origins. That the store has to pay too much to get in to do. But you have to figure that the store is still making something even at that ratio. Not much at all, very, very true, but the event is not operating at a loss, just not at a significant profit.

Just to make it clear, the price for the event has increased from it's old $8.00 per player to $10.00 per player, and the prizes no longer include a guaranteed 2 packs per player or whatever it used to be, right?

There was some confusion about this yesterday, and I wanted to clear that up a bit.

Yes, that is correct.

man quickfate is given me anxiety.....might just let my bro play and just play fun games or play SSB for cards, ten dollars is steep when i dont know i have a chance at winning.

Sorry to thread derail... but this is tchalla-math at it's finest.

I think the cheapest you can find MTU boxes are in the $52-55 range. Let's say he bought them for $50, that's $2.083333 a pack. 39 packs is $81.25... $10 for 8 people is only $80.

They must be getting MTU for dirt cheap.

Kev, man I feel what you're saying.

To be honest, I've played a few rounds with the QFate deck and while it is frustrating... it's not unwinnable. Basically they hit you for 50-70% of your life on turn 2ish and after that they're in top deck mode. If you smash I think the Cloak or the Amulet twice it's good game.

I like going into things with a plan - which is why I love constructed so much. My plan right now looks something like:

Turn 3 play Doom - fetching equip hate - sub him out for Ravager - KO your two drop to replace, smash equip, stun.

It's a bit convoluted but there are enough generic tutors for you to do it. Let's be blunt though: This is still a very ####ty plan. I figure that's the best you can and just... hope you live to play Human Torch and attack with him?

Eudemonia is basically our Frank and Sons, except it's... less evil. Eudemonia is a physical retailer that has a presence online albeit through eBay. As such, the prices they charge are generally comprable to internet pricing.

In addition, while Eudo is a gaming store... it's also a cyber cafe. From what I'd hazard to guess, they make such a high margin of profit from their internet gaming - which in turn gives them a level of security far beyond what your average brick and mortar store gets - that they're more then willing to take hits in the short term in order to guarantee new people coming back and buying their product.

Personal anecdote: When Mirrodin came out for Magic, they were doing 8 dollar MD5 drafts with a 6-4-2-2 prize structure with the Friday Night Magic Promos for the sake of competing with the neighboring store. That math works out to 38 packs for 64.00. Their investment seems to be working: Eudemonia now gets a huge amount of people for their Friday Night Magic drats, while the neighboring stores have suffered.

Curtis works there, and gets his employee discount. I can definitely vouch for him that we DO draft at Euda and GoB at that price, and get that number of packs for support (though we do 5/3/2/2 at GoB)

Ahh... okay... CCGs are not their only business. Wow... must be nice to draft in your area.

I'm surprised they don't flatten out the prizing a bit so that everyone feels they got something, like 4-3-2-2-1-1-1-1. Do you guys run them as pick-drafts or keeper-drafts?

If by pick-drafts you mean we pool the rares and pick afterwards, then yes.

Nice. Pick-drafts too.

We need a store like that down here too... well... maybe not.

tchalla-math was still fuzzy though, they do lose a little money on those drafts... they just make it up on the pc-crack.

I won't get in to anything more specific, for fear of creating trouble, but we don't lose money on those drafts. It really doesn't make us money, but we don't lose money either.

Magic drafts work to the same numbers.

My employee price for packs is roughly $2.50/pack. Roughly, and for most sets, depending on who we got our box of what from.

But, I could see how limited access to my number pool could create the illusion that the math was wrong.

That said, I don't know that CC could do the same thing as Eudemonia.

They can do better than $10.00 and not packs for everyone though.

Curtis, what type of trouble are you afraid of? Really, unless Eudemonia is out to hunt down and destroy you guys, I don't really see what's wrong.

If you're afraid of taking away business from CC or whatever, I highly recommend you put out your information so I can present them with some stuff to get them to increase their prizing. My loyalty is to the game and not to the shop, and I would much rather play at Eudemonia - which can seemingly give out better prizes and subsequently preserve interest in the game - as opposed to having to host somewhere else where I have to pull money out of my own pocket.

Curtis, what would you recommend be done for a $10.00 entry fee?

Please enlighten us!

For $10.00 per player, each player needs to be guaranteed product for prizes. This might be harder on CC since they might not go through UDE direct for their cards, which adds a little more cost. It also might be affected by how much profit margin they want to hold on to. They might not be able to make up the gap in food and drink sales or singles sales like Eudemonia does.

That might make a win-a-box tournament harder on them than other places.

Eudemonia is currently considering ending VS events outright due to low turn out, which is directly the result of trying to schedule events with out me handling them. They want to make it more competitive between the local shops, and are fighting for the same day, and that is hurting Eudemonia's turn out. they have even gone to offering free prize support, but lack an outlet to advertise it without me handling it really. Timing is really important in this. CC is scheduling their events on Sundays, uncontested, but the entry to prize ratio is just too high for the casual gamer. Part of what Eudemonia had to learn the hard way. Now, Eudemonia has an awesome prize structure, but next to no one coming in and playing.

I am trying to get a good system worked out between CC and Eudemonia to inspire players to play at both, and get great deals for playing.

Ask them if they would be willing to ensure 1 booster pack per player, (which adds up to less than $3.00 entry fee), and that would leave the remaining $7.00 per player to go towards more valuable prizing. 8 players at $7.00 is $56.00 worth of prizes, right? That should offer a box to first place, and the shop should still make a little something. The profit margin is higher on snacks than card packs any way, and getting a lot of people in the store helps sell snacks. Outside food, and encouraging it hurts them, though.

Eudemonia has started to carry healthy snacks alternatives, and that has helped a lot. If CC will go for that format, I'll make it happen at Eudemonia too. Even if I have to use my own discount to get prizes to give out.

Just a side question for both Curtis and Paul when are you guys planning on running your respected City Championships?

I am no longer running the City Champ for VS. Rob is running that, which I think means I get to play!!!!